Joseph Toney Calls Himself "Shaq\" And Wears A Lakers Jersey With \"o'neal" Printed On The Back. He Bought A Ticket To Tonight's Game To Watch The Real Shaq Win A Third Straight Nba Title Within A Few Miles Of The New Jersey Neighborhood Where The Kid Was Born. All Grown Up And Famous Now, Shaq Never Has Even Met The Man Who Is His Biological Father, The Man Who Abandoned Him Soon After He Was Born. Now He Just Wishes This Guy Would . . .

Get Lost!

Shaq's Outcast Father Still Courts Famous Son

June 12, 2002|By Bill Plaschke, National Correspondent

NEWARK, N.J. -- The man who doesn't exist walks larger than life through the dank hallways of the Goodwill Home and Mission, wearing a gold Lakers jersey adorned with "O'Neal."

The man who abandoned his second child awakens every morning in his tiny, windowless room to photos of the boy on the wall and desk, all grown up, giant and famous and gone.

The man who has been purposely forgotten has put a message on his answering machine that shows he will never forget. "Hi, this is Shaq . . ." says the voice.

That's not his name. But it was once his shame.

And even as he tries to fix things from his place in the darkest shadow of his son's greatest glory, Joseph Toney realizes it's much too late.

"It's finished, and it's God's will, and there's nothing more I can do," he said softly.

Joseph Toney is Shaquille O'Neal's biological father.

He lives and works in a Newark shelter 15 minutes from the Continental Airlines Arena, where O'Neal will lead the Lakers against the New Jersey Nets tonight in what could be a clinching Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Toney has obtained a ticket on his own and will cheer for his son but will not say hello.

He has never said hello.

They have never spoken.

They have never even met.

This is not by accident.

Wondering how a father could leave his son when he was 6 months old, O'Neal treats him as if he's dead.

Claiming he lost contact only because he was in prison, then on drugs, Toney says he is alive and sorry.

O'Neal's people claim Toney is only looking for money and fame.

Toney's people, who include his Goodwill employers, say he is clean and sober and looking for nothing.

The only thing certain is that these glorious days for a giant hero have been painfully nicked with irony.

This is O'Neal's triumphant homecoming to a Newark area where he grew up and still maintains ties with as many as 200 relatives. Yet his closest blood relation here is not welcome.

This is a time when O'Neal's funky trademark smile is becoming the NBA's logo. Yet the only man in the world who shares that smile doesn't even know him.

When asked Monday about his biological father, O'Neal's smile turned to stone.

"No, it doesn't bother me at all," he said. "Because the man doesn't even exist."

When asked if he would ever see Toney, O'Neal said Tuesday after practice, "Probably not. If I'd meet him or see him, I'd say `Hello.' But I didn't hear from him from 2-to-19, then [after Shaq was at LSU] he wanted to see me. Why was that? Philip Harrison [his stepfather] made me into the man I am today."

O'Neal, 30, has four children of his own and wants more. And by all accounts, he takes care of each and every one because of what happened in his upbringing. There has never been a paternity charge against O'Neal made public, or a child-support issue.

Although Los Angeles-area reporters have heard O'Neal refer to a woman as "my wife," it is not clear whether he is married or if all the children are the couple's. It is believed that at least two of his children -- Amirah and a son, Shareef -- live with them in his Beverly Hills mansion.

AN AMAZING STORY

"You want to see Shaq?"

That is what the weary-eyed man behind the front desk of the Goodwill Home and Mission says when you ask about Joseph Toney. That is what they call him here.

It's a place more about desperate hope than heroes, these brick buildings lodged in a narrow street in downtown Newark, dozens of men wandering around, the air thick with old sweat and mumbled promises.

Lots of men come here claiming to have something special.

Joseph Toney has delivered.

"When I heard he was Shaq's father, I took it with a grain of salt," said Rich Callahan, director of ministries. "You hear a lot of that sort of thing around here."

But Toney, who checked in three years ago as just another drug-addled soul, always kept a scrapbook. And in that scrapbook he kept a birth certificate.

He's only 6 feet 1, but he does have O'Neal's smile, and his lower jaw, and even his slow gait.

As Toney straightened up and became a member of the Goodwill staff, driving a truck that delivered bread to homeless shelters, his credibility increased and everyone believed.

"It's a pretty amazing story," Callahan says.

Over the years, Toney has occasionally shared that story with the local newspaper, and he did so again last weekend. But with the Lakers arriving in town for the middle games of the NBA Finals, the news was too close for comfort.

Sunday morning before Game 3 here, Philip "Sarge" Harrison, O'Neal's career Army stepfather, was inside the mission's hallways, rapping on that front desk.

He summoned Toney from his third-floor dormitory room and into the street, where he repeated rules that he had set many years ago.

Recalled Toney: "He was upset and told me to stay away. I told him, I didn't want anything. I never wanted anything."

Said Harrison later: "Of course he wants something. If Shaquille wasn't famous, we would have never heard from him. Why is he doing this? Why?"